“I think you’ve earned it,” she teased, collecting the tumbler of watery vodka before entering his sphere again.
He took the glass, and he took her, dragging her against him and keeping his eyes on her as he took a slurp. He offered her a drink and she gratefully took it, licking her lips as he splayed his hand across her ass.
“Now you really look like you were picked up by the wind and blown in here,” he teased, his gaze flitting over her.
Sophie laughed and settled alongside of him. His arm remained around her, keeping her close, and she didn’t mind one bit.
“Not that it needs to be said again, but this isn’t how I planned to spend my first night as a divorced woman.”
The cinch he gave her was playful now, but it brought to mind the protection they had offered her in the elevator when she was frightened, and she longed to cuddle into them.
But she stayed upright, comfortably settled against his arm, knowing that even though he would probably welcome her affection that it was only moments before the lethargy wore off and she’d cool right back into reality.
“Answer a question for me,” he said as he recaptured the glass. “What kind of bed do you have?”
Sophie giggled. “Sorry?”
“I always had this picture in my head of you sleeping on some enormous wooden monstrosity with carved dragon heads looking down on you.”
“Do you think I practice Elvish when I’m alone, too? Why do you want to know?”
“It helps me think,” he said, the rasping rumble of his words telling her just what sort of thoughts those were. He held the glass close to him as he bowed and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. His damp mouth ascended, and Sophie turned to meet his smiling mouth.
“I never did thank you for turning things around when Ray tried to get slimy, and now for keeping me from freaking out too hard in the elevator.”
Ben raised his brows. “You’ll have to give me a little while if you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting to thank me.”
She gave his tie a tug. “At least you didn’t tell me how much I owe you.”
“Oh, that makes me sound like a whore,” he laughed, pulling her closer. “I kind of like it.”
Sophie hissed as the cold perspiration from the glass dribbled between her breasts, then she laughed as he set the glass aside and lapped up the stream and beyond, all the way back to her lips.
“I’d like to do this again,” he said quietly.
“So would I,” she admitted.
“Dinner?”
With his suggestion, uttered so hungrily against her mouth, Sophie pulled back. “I think we can skip dinner.”
“Ah, I forgot. You’re not interested in anything more than my body. Not that I mind, but I just thought it would be a good idea to load up on carbohydrates before we do some real damage in a real bed. Don’t worry. I haven’t fallen madly in love yet.”
His arm tightened, as did his grip as he slid his hand into her hair and made her captive for another kiss.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he whispered, drawing back just enough to knock her off her axis with that devilish look. “I’ll take you to dinner some place people go when they’re having an affair, where you can practically see the sex in the air and no one makes eye contact with the wait staff. Then, we’ll find us an equally sordid hotel and screw like all the other animals getting wild behind closed doors. We can even use fake names and pay cash.”
It was so ludicrous of a suggestion she almost laughed, and would have if he hadn’t reached between them and began the most wicked exploration. She leaned against him and let him have his way for a moment, then closed her thighs with a laugh.
“Is that your idea of romance?”
“Romance is off the table, remember? That’s my idea of making you wet whenever you think about the next time we meet.”
He let her go when she moved away from him, and as she scavenged for her clothes she watched him collect his boxers.
“Have you ever done this before?” she asked.
He gave his waistband a snap. “Didn’t you ask me that already?”
“Not this. An ... OK, your word ... affair. Sex with no strings.”
He nodded as he moved to his desk and flipped the top of his humidor--another thing she had always disliked, the smell of those cigars wafting up as she sat across from him. Just like the tie and the cologne, she didn’t mind so much now that she watched him cut the tip and light one up.
“This is a public building. No smoking,” she chastised.
He puffed until a cloud rose up around him, then chuckled as he eased back into his seat. “So call a cop on me and tell them I lit a stogie after I made you come three times. And yes, I’ve done sex with no strings. I’m not crazy about doing it again, but if those are your rules I’ll play by them.”
“There are no rules, and even if there were they wouldn’t be my rules,” she countered as she hooked her bra. “I just need to stretch out a little before I jump into something.”
“And I’m the perfect rebound.”
He spoke gently, but there was just enough flint in that statement to make her cautious. She’d never turned her back on conflict before and she wasn’t about to start now. She dragged her panties on and turned.
Minus the clothes, the smirking satyr behind the desk was one who greeted her so many times and gotten under her skin even more.
“Probably,” she said honestly, and took her usual place in the chair facing him. “No, that’s not right. After what just happened, I’d say you’re more than a perfect rebound, which is another reason to keep arm’s length. I’d be a little crushed to discover you’re the worst kind of asshole and I’d have to let you go.”
The pungent smoke coiled around his head and made a drifting, translucent crown above his head. She couldn’t tell whether he was amused or just reserved. He still wore that infuriating smile and his eyes betrayed nothing.
“Tell me something, Sophie,” he said just as she regretfully resigned herself to having insulted him into asking her to leave, “if I hadn’t given you the sob story about the unfaithful wife and then painted myself as a devoted single father, would you be sitting there right now still squirming and slippery?”
“Is this the part where you tell me it was a lie, and it was my fault for trusting a shady divorce lawyer?” she asked, only half-joking.
“No, but I’m not buying your dedication to this notion that you couldn’t possibly have even an iota of affection towards me. If you didn’t, I think you’d be long gone. I think the whole thing on the elevator just gave you the same opportunity it gave me. You’re not the kind of woman who screws with no strings. There has to be at least one thread, regardless how thin. If all this was just about getting off, you wouldn’t be overly concerned with whether or not you like me now that you’ve fucked me.” He gave her a victorious flash of teeth and set the cigar in the ashtray on the windowsill. “I know you better than you thought I did.”
As infuriating as his deduction had been, a part of her also found it incredibly charming. As a tingle moved from the cluster in her belly and outward, Sophie rested her elbows on the desktop and propped her chin on the bridge she made with twined fingers.
“Maybe I do like you a little. After all, you did lock Ray out of what you predict will be my future millions. And maybe I like hearing you talk even when I wish you’d shut up. That doesn’t mean you can negotiate your way into more than just casual sex with me. You can call yourself my rebound, my Mr. Right Now, or my fucktoy, if it makes you feel better, but I’m still not interested in dating you--at least not yet.”
Ben’s smile widened. “Nice. I like how you left yourself an open door at the end.”
“You’re not the only one who’s good with words,” she quipped with a smile and a shrug, then stood. “Speaking of which, I have an evening’s work to catch up on tomorrow.”
“You never gave me an answer--dinner?”
She sh
ook her head as she stepped into her skirt. “Ask me on Monday after I’ve had time to think about it. No, don’t get up.”
Ben came around the desk and grabbed his shirt from the sofa en route to the door. By the time she pulled her sweater over her head and stuffed her feet into her shoes, he stood on the threshold waiting. Arms crossed, nothing but his boxers, an open shirt and that tie, he gave Sophie second thoughts about his invitation to that clandestine dinner and low-rent hotel.
She stopped before him and gave into the urge to scrape her nails down his chest. “Do you know where I live?”
The tilt of his brows was equal parts surprise and triumph. “Not off the top of my head, but I can look it up.”
“Sunday I’m having a thing. It’s a ... I’ve been talked into having a divorce party. It seems like my divorce lawyer should be the guest of honor. How does that sound to you?”
He pushed away from the doorjamb and bent over her. “I’ll do my best.”
Delight sizzled through her as he lifted her hand and gave her knuckles a soft kiss. She edged out of his grasp and felt a wave of disappointment come over her with the suggested barrier of the threshold divided them. She’d been left more than sated by Ben, but the burn for him was still there under the skin.
She wondered at it as she stepped out of the offices of MPC. Had it always been there? Only hours earlier, the mere suggestion that her attraction to him was more than physical would have made her laugh.
Now as she pressed the elevator call button, she had to admit that the sparks she felt had as much to do with the layers she had peeled away from the version of himself she had judged. The scars and the tattoos, the sports junkie and the weekend-Dad and the dutiful grandson: it wasn’t enough to make her fall head over heels, but it was enough to make her curious.
The elevator doors parted and she took a step, then remembered this was the same that had stopped on them. She quickly pressed the lobby button and leapt out of the elevator, and as it descended she pressed the button again to call the second car.
The scuttle had reminded her of how slick she was between her legs, and in turn the slipperiness brought back the memory of his fingers and his tongue and his cock, of his hands pushing her thighs apart and his body solid against hers as he drove up into her.
She sure as hell hoped Ben Croft wasn’t an asshole. She wasn’t lying to him. It would plunge her into a deep depression to give up a lover as good as she’d found in her lawyer.
Chapter Five
“I didn’t know you had so many hot friends,” Yvonne told Sophie, her gaze casting a wide net across the condo. “Are they all writers?”
“Just one, and he’s married. The rest are all neighbors, friends, and relatives.”
“Can you maybe walk around and stick labels on them? I have no problem getting freaky with one of your friends and neighbors, but we get into a grey area with your relatives.”
Sophie leaned across the coffee table and picked through the bottles of wine on the table until she found one that still had a bit of white left, and shot her oldest friend a dirty look as she filled her glass.
“You know, trying to hook up at my divorce party is a little tacky.”
“You’re right. You should be the one trying to hook up and casting your leftovers in my direction,” Yvonne countered, and raised her glass to Sophie. “Congratulations on finally ridding yourself of that slob.”
Laughing, Sophie clinked glasses with Yvonne and took a sip. “Actually, I think I’ve got the hooking up covered.”
Yvonne’s brows flew up. “Oh? Do tell. Unless it’s about that bus driver you were dating, then keep it to yourself. I’m not interested in a horror story.”
“He wasn’t that bad.” Sophie glanced around, scanning her collection of guests for parents and eavesdropping friends-of, then leaned in. “Though in comparison to my divorce attorney, my love affair with Metro’s finest charioteer could be called a disappointment.”
“Oh, you dirty girl,” Yvonne hissed.
She couldn’t help her smile from widening, and Yvonne cackled.
Shameless. That was the only word she could think to describe her weekend post-Ben. There had been the Facebook stalking and aggressive Googling. Then came the gazing out the window and rewinding her brain on how good he looked once he was loosened up and again when he was disheveled and flushed as he saw her out. One of the benefits of working for herself was the ability to screw around when she felt like it, and she took full advantage of that perk as she kept on clicking to Ben’s profile on his website.
“Is he here tonight?” Yvonne probed.
“I invited him, but he hasn’t showed. I’m a little relieved. How much more awkward do you think I want this party to be? All I need is for my cousin K.C. to thrust her Florida-baked implants in his face while I’m trying to pretend I don’t still have a rash from his beard in places where there should be no rashes.”
“When did this happen?”
“Friday night, right after I got the decree.”
Yvonne set her glass aside and held her hands up. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore. Divorced, getting wealthier by the day, banging your sexy lawyer--wait, he is sexy, isn’t he? You didn’t get freaky with some senior partner with saggy balls, did you?”
“What is the matter with you?” Sophie said through her giggles, then pointed across the room. “Actually, I bet if you oiled him up he’d look a lot like that.”
It was to the poster-sized print she gestured now: Bloody Bess and Sym. The man that hung on her wall was fierce and muscular, and ever since her night with Ben he had reminded her a little of her lawyer. The bunch of muscles and merciless look was like looking at Ben in the midst of the hard ride he had given her, and she liked Not-Sym a little more.
“If that’s not an invitation to do a bit of roleplaying, I don’t know what is,” Yvonne said, and twisted her head around. “Balcony is free of all the awkward people. Come out with me while I have a puff?”
The trek to the balcony took a few minutes. Yvonne went on while Sophie was wrangled into a lengthy chat with a twice-divorced neighbor who grilled her about how much in alimony she ended up paying her ex and gave her the entire saga of his previous marriages.
She groaned as she stepped onto the balcony. “Jesus, tell me there’s wine out here.”
“I hope you like sauvignon blanc.”
It took a moment for Sophie to match the familiar voice with the man who sat next to Yvonne, and when she realized it was a clean-shaven Ben her knees went weak.
“Oh, hello,” she said, more squeak than sentence, and somehow managed to make it to the edge of the balcony without wobbling too much. “I didn’t think you were here.”
“I slipped in right past you.” He raised up the open bottle and gave it a little shake. “Your glass is empty. We can’t have that, can we?”
Sophie looked down at the dime-sized golden puddle at the bottom of her glass, then discreetly took a deep breath as he half-filled her goblet.
God, he looked even better without the pelt on his face. She could see the delicious curve of his mouth and, have mercy, dimples teasing on his cheeks.
Yvonne extended her own glass and flashed a cheeky grin at Sophie. “Ben was just telling me about the elevator.”
As Ben laughed that delicious low laugh, Sophie burned.
Told her what?
He leaned back. Aside from the lack of facial hair, he was dressed casually in jeans and a red sweater. It was unnerving to see him out of his suit. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she’d fetishized him and the power he seemed to wield with his appearance. Dressed down, his was just plain unnerving. Normal. Boyish. Adorable.
“I have to admit, I was much more in danger of voiding my bladder than I led on when that elevator stopped,” he said, leaning back in his seat with his own glass. “I think I did a good job of hiding it, don’t you?”
The smile he flashed made Sophie feel like Yvonne had just va
nished into thin air and left just the two of them.
Sophie raised her glass as the giggle he inspired skittered back down into her belly. “My hero. Thanks for not peeing on me.”
It was clear from Yvonne’s sideways glance that she thought the post-divorce fucking had occurred in the elevator, but she didn’t drop any comments in the atmosphere and neither Ben nor Sophie lingered long on the subject of their time in the elevator, and the events in the office was never mentioned. Sophie made a mental note to save one bottle of wine for the next evening when she expected to be grilled in private about the pornographic details.
Yvonne smoked two more cigarettes as she quizzed Ben about the most bizarre divorce cases he’d been a part of, but once her lone glass of wine was gone she didn’t ask for another.
“I’m going to go see if your mom is drunk enough to call your father her furry beast,” she said, and gave Sophie a not-to-secret look before turning to Ben. “It was nice meeting you, and thanks for getting Sophie out of paying half her Bess money to Ray. Oh, and for the good wine.”
She closed the patio door behind her, and though Sophie didn’t look she saw the movement of the curtains closing from the corner of her eye.
“Subtle,” Ben said, sprawling back in his seat. “Was the other night the subject over some margaritas?”
“We’re not really margarita people, more like beer or wine--but yes, she knows. She’s the only one here who does, by the way, so don’t worry about everyone picturing you on top of me.”
“So I get to be the only one?”
Sophie scowled but lost it to a smile, and covered it with her free hand. She didn’t move it when he rested his hand on her knee, and the heat bled through the thin silk of her skirt.
“Let this be a lesson to you about courtesy invites: if you’re stupid enough to make them, you’re going to have someone take you up on it,” he teased.
“It’s not that I didn’t want you here,” she said, and took a moment to calm her nerves as she looked at him. “I mean, awkward, but it’s nice that you came. I wouldn’t be having this party if it wasn’t for you.”
Loose Ends Page 5